Washington -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- The screen is black and white .

A little girl , no taller than the weeds that surround her , stands in a field and picks petals from a delicate daisy . She quietly counts each one .

Suddenly an ominous voice can be heard counting down from 10 . She looks up as the camera zooms in on her face , all the way into her iris . And then the unthinkable happens : A mushroom cloud .

Sunday marked the 50th anniversary of the famous `` Daisy '' ad run by Lyndon B. Johnson 's 1964 presidential campaign . The aim of the one-minute spot , widely known as the first political attack ad , was to frame Republican Barry Goldwater as a warmonger .

`` No one had attacked anyone like that before , '' said Robert Mann , a Louisiana State University professor who literally wrote the book about the Daisy ad . `` It was a pretty strong , implicit charge -- that my opponent is a reckless cowboy who will destroy your children in a nuclear holocaust . ''

The end of the spot , which never even mentions Goldwater or shows his image , encourages viewers to vote for Johnson .

It aired only once , during an NBC broadcast of the film `` David and Bathsheba , '' as part of the network 's popular `` Monday Night at the Movies . '' An estimated 50 million viewers were watching , not a bad return on the $ 25,000 spent by Johnson 's campaign .

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While advertising for everyday products such as cleaning supplies had already shifted into a creative realm by that point , political advertising was still intellectually based , Mann noted . It was heavy on facts , light on ethos .

`` It was sort of seen as unseemly to advertise a politician like a bar of soap , '' said Mann , the author of `` Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds . ''

Capitalizing on emotions

But the advertising giant responsible for the Johnson ad , Doyle Dane Bernbach , understood what made people buy things -- and ideas .

`` You ca n't give people enough facts to fall in love with you , you got to move them to fall in love with you , '' Mann said . `` The only way to do that is to make it emotional . ''

And one of the most prevalent emotions in September 1964 , less than two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis , was fear .

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Goldwater had listed the use of small nuclear weapons as a possible way to defoliate parts of the Vietnam jungle and destroy key infrastructure used by communist guerrillas . He tried backing away from those comments , saying he was n't necessarily advocating such tactics . But Democrats had already seized on the language to help drive part of their narrative against the candidate .

`` It was almost like a crusade not to have Goldwater become president , '' said Sidney Myers , the creative director at Dane Doyle Bernbach at the time who helped make the ad . `` We just did what we usually do : We take a product , we tell the truth about it in an unusual way . ''

And Republicans fought back , protesting over what they considered a grossly misleading attack against Goldwater . That in part helped spurred media coverage for the rest of the week , with all three news networks airing the ad . Experts say it was the first example of a political spot becoming a news event .

`` It was a commercial that went viral before there was a ` viral , ' '' said Drew Babb , an advertising creative director who teaches political ads at American University .

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So how did they come up with the idea ? The firm was hired by the Democratic National Committee to work on a series of 27 anti-Goldwater ads , five of which focused on nuclear warfare .

Myers , now 82 , said he was listening to soundtracks of children with sound engineer Tony Schwartz , another mastermind behind the Daisy ad , and they came across sound of a child counting from one to 10 .

`` We decided that would be a great symbol to use , '' he recalled . `` That symbol of a child counting , then a voice of doom melding into the child 's voice -- a great symbol to show that this is what could happen to a child . ''

Myers said he was inspired by a 1954 French film , `` The 400 Blows , '' by director FranÃ § ois Truffaut . To show that a child had died in the movie , the director froze the shot on the child and zoomed into the child 's face .

The Daisy ad was actually shot in a residential field in Manhattan , he said , adding that it took about two hours and 15 to 20 takes to get the shot they wanted from the little girl , child actress Monique Luiz .

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Now 53 , Luiz said she barely recalls anything from the shoot . She was about 3 and only remembers her mother taking her to a daisy field . Her parents -- one a fan of Goldwater and the other of Johnson -- had no idea their daughter would be featured in a political spot .

`` And so when it aired , I remembered them saying ` Oh my gosh . It 's a political ad for Johnson ! ' '' she said . `` And then there was all the backlash . I remember my grandmother speaking about it and being concerned that it was so harsh . ''

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When Luiz moved to Phoenix -- home of the Goldwater 's department store -- about 20 years after the ad , she warily avoided the chain , worried she might be found out .

`` My grandmother had instilled this fear in me that I should n't comment to people that I 'm the Daisy girl because , you know , it was n't necessarily a good thing that I was in that ad , '' she said .

Because the spot aired only once and Luiz was a toddler at the time , she never saw the full thing until 2000 , when she was in a technical college course and her professor asked the class to look up videos online .

Luiz admitted she 's not a fan of all the attention the ad has brought over the past 50 years , nor does she feel `` completely proud '' that the commercial set a precedent for what 's become five decades of increasingly negative political ads .

`` I do n't really like that part of it , '' she said . `` But , you know , it 's part of my life and part of my history . ''

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Lyndon B. Johnson 's campaign aired the `` Daisy '' ad on September 7 , 1964

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The controversial ad targeted his opponent , Republican Barry Goldwater

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Experts say the spot , considered the first political attack ad , changed politics

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Monique Luiz , the girl who starred in the ad , never saw the full thing until 2000